(Bloomberg) -- Activist investor Starboard Value has built a stake in consumer-products company Kenvue Inc., seeking changes that would boost the Tylenol maker’s stock price, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Starboard believes Kenvue — spun out of Johnson & Johnson last year — has some of the best consumer brands in its industry, yet its stock has underperformed peers and the broader market since its debut, the Journal said Sunday, citing unidentified people familiar with the matter.
Kenvue’s shares are up less than 1% so far this year, giving it a market value of $41.6 billion. That compares with the 23% rise of the S&P 500 Index. In premarket trading on Monday, the shares surged about 5%.
The exact size of Starboard’s position in Kenvue and its specific ideas couldn’t be learned, the Journal said.
Representatives for Kenvue and Starboard didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment outside normal business hours.
Other Kenvue brands include Aveeno, Band-Aid, Zyrtec, Neosporin and Neutrogena. Health and beauty make up about 28% of the Skillman, New Jersey-based company’s business, and its performance in that area has been lagging behind peers’.
Even as the skin-care industry grew unit sales by 3.6% last year, according to Circana data, sales volumes of Kenvue’s brands fell 4.8%. Those declines continued in the company’s most recent quarter, though higher prices drove a 1.5% increase in organic sales.
--With assistance from Crystal Tse.
(Updates with premarket trading)
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